DAMASCUS, 5 May 2005 — Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, on his first visit to Syria since taking office, said yesterday that Beirut and Damascus would review their future relations following Syria’s troop pullout. A joint commission will “examine the accords between the two countries to ensure they are in the interests of the two and implemented with respect for their sovereignty and independence”, he told reporters after talks with President Bashar Assad.

Syria and Lebanon have been linked since 1991, a year after the end of the 15-year Lebanese civil war, by a treaty of friendship and cooperation which provides for close coordination in the political, economic and security spheres. The prime minister, who was in Damascus on his first foreign visit since taking office in mid-April, also said that a commission was to carry out a new probe into the plight of Lebanese prisoners held in Syria.

The visit comes after Syria on April 26 ended its almost three-decade-old military presence in Lebanon. Damascus said all its troops and intelligence assets were pulled out in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1559. Missing Lebanese and those held prisoner, long a taboo subject in ties between the two neighbors, have become a hot issue since the political crisis sparked by the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.

Nongovernmental organizations have identified 440 Lebanese who have disappeared or been detained in Syria for years, among them prisoners who were teenagers when they were seized. In December 2000, Syria released a batch of 54 Lebanese prisoners, at which time the two capitals said the issue had been settled.

In an interview with the Spanish daily El Pais published yesterday, Syrian Prime Minister Mohamed Naji Otri said the Lebanese citizens held in Syria were “terrorists”. “It is a question going back 25 to 30 years during the civil war,” he said, adding the detainees were members of the South Lebanon Army militia which collaborated with the Israeli Army then occupying southern Lebanon. “These people were fighting alongside Israel and killed Syrian soldiers. Obviously they were punished, like terrorists in Spain or other countries,” the prime minister said, declining to give a number.

Mikati said his talks with Bashar, with whom he has a personal friendship, also covered the Syrian work force in Lebanon, estimated to number 300,000. The labor ministers of the two countries are to meet to “draw up a study” and to set up an office at the border for the registration of workers headed for jobs in each other’s countries.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Christian president urged Parliament yesterday to change a law organizing coming elections, saying current rules could lead to unbalanced representation. The assembly, now dominated by Syria’s political allies, has until today to pass a new electoral law governing the polls set to start on May 29. Otherwise they will be held under the rules of the last general election in 2000.

Pro-Syria President Emile Lahoud, in a letter to Parliament, said the 2000 law, which split Lebanon into constituencies in a way seen to favor Damascus’s allies, was causing “sharp political dispute” that could lead to unbalanced representation. He said the election should be held “on time under a law that secures the best expression of the will of the people”.

Lebanese opposition leaders and deputies joined thousands of supporters of imprisoned Christian warlord Samir Geagea at a Beirut rally yesterday to demand his immediate release from jail. Around 7,000 people waving Lebanese flags gathered at Beirut’s central Riad Square.

— With input from agencies